By Prof. Titi Kuku
Prof. Titilayo Kuku was formerly the Dean, Faculty of Technology, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. A down to earth humanitarian par excellence and former chairman of the post UTME and convocation committees of the same institution through whom many visually impaired candidates were privileged to access the admission of the great Ife of which some are today graduates of one academic discipline or the others. He is a Professor of Electronic/Electrical Engineering with his Ph.D from the prestigious Imperial college, London. In this exclusive interview, Prof. Titilayo Kuku expressly dissected the fields of Engineering with emphasis on Electronic and Electrical Engineering; giving details on the admission procedures; professional bodies; new breed Engineering courses in the universities and other higher institutions; strengths and weaknesses of Nigerian universities; disposition of students to Engineering courses; the place of Electronic Engineering in Entrepreneurship and so on.
ACADEMIC PROFILE
Prof. Titilayo Kuku is a Professor of Electronic Engineering in the department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria. He had his first degree in Chemistry from the then University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife) in 1975; Master degree from Southampton and Ph.D from Imperial college, London.
FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
As a former Dean in the faculty, he gave the precise components of the faculty of Engineering at the level of Obafemi Awolowo University as comprising the following departments: Electronic and Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Civil Engineering, Agricultural Engineering, Computer Engineering, and Food Science and Engineering.
PROFESSIONAL REGULATORY BODIES
COREN Was said to be the main or grand regulatory body for all professional Engineers while the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) represents the conglomerate of all engineering professions and professionals. He said no member can be inducted into COREN even with all necessary qualifications or certifications without first being a member of NSE. “The idea of COREN is that when somebody is trained abroad, he must be registered by COREN before he/she can practise in Nigeria; so COREN is more of regulatory because one must have been registered by NSE before such could be inducted into COREN”, he said.
QUALIFICATIONS FOR THE PROFESSIONAL BODIES
He emphasised the facts that different engineering professions have their professional bodies under which all members first register before registering with NSE or the registration could be simultaneous. While asked whether only graduates were qualified to be enlisted with the professional bodies and consequently be called engineers, he made some clarifications as regards this. His words, “The holders of ND, HND, B.Sc. Eng., can be called Engineers after they’ve been inducted into NSE at least; while the lower (qualifications) like technical and craft people can also be inducted as technicians/ practitioners. In all, competence examinations must have been taken.” He clarified.
FIELD OF ELECTRONIC ENGINEERING AND RELEVANCE TO PRACTICAL PRODUCTIVITY AND INDUSTRY
Basically, his own field of electronic engineering according to him, has to do with development of materials and devices for the build-up of systems. “The research team usually comprises materials Scientists, Physics Engineers, Electronic engineers, electrical engineers, mathematicians, etc. So, it is multi- disciplinary”, He said.
TO WHAT EXTENT ARE THE PRATICAL REALITIIES OF COURSES LIKE THIS (ELECTRONIC AND ELECTRICAL ENGINEERING) IN NIGERIA? ARE THEY PRATICALLY IN PRACTICE?
His words, “They are and they are not. The semi- conductor laboratory in OAU came ahead of its time, (put in place in 1963); not updated/upgraded. To a level, there is a problem in the area of maintenance as the subvention from government is not enough to take care of some whole lot of things in the University.” While asked whether the earlier installation of the laboratory should be a plus or minus on the technological development of the university, the university don said “coming ahead of its time should have been a plus if it had been maintained as the lab came about the same time as its version in Tunisia; also a university based. But the latter (Tunisia version) has expanded and become more of an industry; the end products of their facilities are now complete TV sets and a lot of other electronics systems. The funding is not there (here in Nigeria). The laboratory (OAU version) was funded once to the tune of about N1.2M around 78/79 (1978/79), and that was only able to buy just one equipment. Equivalent laboratory at Imperial College where I was trained was spending about 40 million pounds every year then. Some of it came from the ministry of defence; some from the ministry of science and Technology while some came from industries.”
He was further quizzed on the likely products such semi – conductor laboratory at OAU could afford to produce industrially if it were to be in in the expected functional state. He said “if the lab were to be in its normal state, computer system like this (pointing to his laptop right in front of him) could be produced from there because systems have chips (which are the main products from the lab) embedded in them”. As to whether anything of such could ever be traced to Africa as a whole, the erudite professor still emphasized Tunisia; though, according to him, some of those things that are made are branded differently away from their geographical places they are made so as to attract international patronage; hence most African made products may not be easily traceable to their source really. He stated that china and Japan started such system of branding at the inception of their industrial evolution but now they have big names as well as big markets for their products.
FAKE PRODUCTS
“Fake products are as a result of inadequate material contents of a particular product. National standards of the UK and USA would not allow for such fake products in their countries and the business people dare not import such products into their shores.” He stated. He gave credit to the National Standard of Ghana which he said was doing an excellent job to ascertain good products and services in Ghana. He said without mincing words that the products regulatory system in Ghana was far better than what was obtainable in Nigeria. He therefore advised the Nigeria version of the regulatory body to actually play the game according to the rules.
NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY SYSTEM AND MANAGEMENT
While fielding questions on the system of education at the university level in Nigeria, Prof. Kuku was sceptical about the rightness of the system and management. This he claimed was ranging from government maladministration of the system which in most cases could not be unconnected with insufficient funding; to parents and students factors. He said the universities in Nigeria were underfunded and that had led to the institutional malady. According to him, “there are defects to some extent in the Nigerian university system, from over population to inadequate facilities. No enough resources in the universities, especially the federal universities.” He said. He told a personal story as an undergraduate in the 70’s when the going was somewhat good and rosy with the universities. He said it was usually two students in a room; but at his final year, a friend of his came for a diploma in the university and was yet to have an accommodation, so he offered to have him ‘squatted’ in his room which infuriated his legitimate room mate who agitated that the room would be stuffy and inconvenient. The Professor exclamatorily lamented that the same room that was meant for two which someone was complaining of being jam-packed because of extra one person, was being occupied by sixteen “conveniently” as far back as 1981/82 when he visited the place!
On the other hand; he spoke to the fact that parents and students are not doing enough to help the messy condition of the university system in Nigeria in that they have built up a kind of all–must- be free mentality. “We were here (at the then university of Ife, now OAU), we paid; it’s either you paid yourself or you had a scholarship. Our parents are at fault, our students are at fault. People want to get things free of charge and it cannot be. Just take a look at our educational system, it is lopsided, at nursery and primary, people pay heavily; secondary school (students) pay heavily but in the university they don’t want to pay, ( the reason ) Nigerian graduates system is a mixed bag”. He said frankly.
SCHOLASTIC TRAVELLING ABROAD
A surmise on the fact that scholastic travelling abroad in those days seemed easier than now was not that accepted by the professor; he said that it was easy for those who had the opportunity and the sponsorship. He stated that like others who had the same opportunity, he was a university scholar because as soon as they finished then, university reabsorbed him as a graduate assistant based on merit as it was usually meant for the first class and second class upper stuff. “Except for some that though qualified but refused to come back (to take appointment in the university). Some of them went straight to their private businesses, becoming entrepreneurs, some took appointment in different private organisations, and of course they are doing quite better now. They were a little more visionary than some of us, we are not as comfortable as they are now.”
LOCALLY BREED ENTREPRENEURS IN THE FIELD OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY
It is a popular campaign now that all students should be entrepreneurially compliant, especially in production and manufacturing which much of it could be found in engineering and technology. The issue was raised by our team in the course of this interview encounter with Prof. Titlayo Kuku who also gave a positive personal take on the matter. “Ife is starting to do that, we started entrepreneurship skills some years back whereby students are exposed to entrepreneurship training so that by the time they are through with their education on campus, they can be able to stand on their own.” He said.
PRIVATE UNIVERSITY VS GOVERNMENT OWNED UNIVERSITIES
On whether one can safely infer that private universities are doing better than the public ones (Government owned) or not; he chimed in that that was how it’s supposed to be but not yet in Nigeria as most proprietors of the private universities are over profit focused while the qualities and values are not taken seriously. He said, “They (private universities) are supposed to be better but unfortunately they are not because they are business entities. Lack of quality teachers, and when they do, they have few. People see education in Nigeria as a way of making money not as a way of making the life of student better.”
On the alleged stereotypical actions of some professors and other lecturers who are fond of using the notes they made use of as undergraduates to teach the contemporary generation of students, he denied this outright basically in his own field, he said emphatically that such is not possible in the field of electronics which is continuously advancing. “It might be possible in other areas of studies… not in Engineering, Medicine, Pharmacy and the likes” He claimed.
NEW GENERATION FIELDS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
The recent findings have it that new breed courses are evolving round some universities and other institutions – Aeronautic Engineering, Robotic Engineering, Mechatronics, Data mining, Data science, etc. are some of these courses. In his own professional view, he maintained the fact that all these new courses are crumbs from existing known courses in the fields of sciences, Engineering and technology. He said, “All these good sounding engineering have always been part of the traditional engineering – Aeronautic engineering is basically mechanical engineering; Robotic engineering is basically electronic engineering; only applied to robotics or Biomedical engineering. The Idea is that there is a growth of the body of knowledge which branches into final details that people can now take up more basically to make something more productive out of them. It is simply the stretching of the normal fields of engineering we have always have in the past. Work in progress on the adoption of some of these programmes in OAU, in fact an air craft training facility is already set in the university (OAU). A number of things are already set in motion to effect the commencement of some of these courses as the new administration has registered her interest in some of the programmes. In fact the new vice – chancellor even had things like such well pronounced in his inaugural speech. Of recent, some of our students from this department (Electronic engineering) went for a competition in the United States on Robots design and they did quite well. Some of these programmes will soon start at OAU as soon as they are approved by the university senate.” He stated further as follows, “A laboratory is already in place in the department to this effect and works in league with MIT on the project, only that some of these new breeds have not been branched out. On the issue of Mechatronics and some of these new breed engineering courses; the NUC are really passionate about it and is encouraging fully fledged operation in schools. They even visited the university here (OAU) previous weeks on the same matter. To have a complete Mechatronic Laboratory, the sum of N300m would be needed. And the graduate of Mechatronics could be well helpful in oil exploration, motor industries, etc. Only that most of the industries are not yet out there in Nigeria. Even though there are limitations as I’ve earlier said, many students are sufficiently smart that they are able to retrain themselves. In fact this is even engendering a problem in the sense that when some of these students go for their industrial training (IT) in part 4, they don’t come back to do part 5 and of course cannot graduate! Reason being that they are found exceptionally good and useful in places they are doing their IT and are given all sorts of comforts to the extent that they are given jobs even without concluding their degree. We have some unfortunate examples they keep on citing; the Microsoft guy (Bill Gate) who didn’t have a degree before owning such great company; Mark Zucherberg or what is he called, that founded Facebook and the host of others. Though they are lured with fat salaries and all manner of job fulfilment but actually disastrous to their future. Some of them are now finding the job so routinely and coming back to complete their studies but it’s too late because the university portal system will no longer recognise them as students after being absent for two consecutive semesters without registration.” He concluded.
PERMANENT DIVERSION FROM THE PRIMARY FIELD OF TRAINING
It has been discovered over time that most graduates are not operating professionally within the enclave of their original disciplines whereby some have dived into banking from engineering while some trained lawyers have turned to chartered accountants and so on; this was curiously inquired of and he gave his own take on the issue as being normal or a natural phenomenon which cannot be found unhappening especially in a society which professional jobs are not evenly distributed like Nigeria. Hence, graduates are tilted towards available job offers and consequently professionalise their selves in the adopted field. “First degree is a starter, a basic. If you must know, I read chemistry in my first degree and took up electronics at the master level; it (first degree) is a basic training ground for everybody to find their levels in a particular field of training.” He emphasised. He corroborated his claim with a case of his cousin who studied Botany at OAU but at present become a leading computer expert at Shell oil company, one of their executives for that matter, “she developed herself in the field of computing and now a top professional computer expert at Shell. It all depends on interest and self-development.” He said.
UNIVERSITIES AND NECESSARY PRATICAL TRAINING FOR POTENTIAL ENGINEERS
The students were said to be exposed to different workshops and three different rigorous industrial attachments before graduation as related to OAU. The first industrial attachment was said to usually come up at the level of part 2; the second at the end of part 3 and 6 unbroken months of industrial attachment in part 4. He frowned at how parents have personally taken up the placement of their wards for Industrial training as against the days of old when university usually did the placement. “University did the placement in the past but has now been taken over by most parents as they will want to take their children to some high- brow places; it is presently a question of who you know”. He said concernedly. However he confirmed that the students are thoroughly supervised each time they go on IT with weekly reports which are contained in their logbooks (some samples shown to our team). He said further, “They also have to be present physically at the close of the IT to defend whatever they have gone to do on field; they even give seminars to that effect.”
ANY SYNERGISED EFFORT AMONG THE DIFFERENT RELATED ENGINEERING FIELDS TO COME UP WITH AN INVENTION, A PRODUCT OR TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION EVER OR IN VIEW?
He responded in positive to this; claiming the synergy is always in place for optimal productivity. His words; “By what we call multidisciplinary research team, we have come about a number of products. The robots made (that were displayed at the US competition/exhibition) were as a result of people coming together from electronic engineering, computer science and mechanical engineering. Some which students went to showcase in the US (were) made in Ife and displayed in the US. Some of the products have been patented. Electronic and electrical engineering at OAU ends up with four programmes at the broad base: Electrical engineering; communication; Electronic devices; and instrumentation and control. At the final year, one has to specialise on any of the four even though the degree awarded is electronic and electrical engineering but with bias towards one of the four areas.” To buttress his assertion on the synergy in different relevant areas of engineering he said further that both software stuff and computer itself are products of electronics; it is just a matter of application of language towards devices usage, that there is a thin line between computer engineering and electronics. He concluded by establishing it that the devices which are operated by the computer engineers are designed by the electronic people; hence the interwoven features of some engineering fields and their compulsory synergy for practical purposes which must go beyond theoretical approach if we really want to have concrete products from the fields.
ORGAINSATIONAL PARTNERSHIP
While it was investigated whether the department of electronic and electrical engineering or the faculty as a whole had ever taken such step like partnering with industrial organisations on some productions, innovations or discoveries; the professor in his response was sceptical of the readiness of most companies as the past attempts were not that yielding the expected results. “Industries are not ready and more so, there are mostly only assemblages in Nigeria and not the main factories. So, there is a problem of partnership for innovations. Universities are supposed to be problem solvers, that is when you are given the problems, and even when you get to them, they promise to get back which is just a former saying because most of the times they do not get back.” He declared.
NIGERIAN UNIVERSITIES OR STUDYING ABROAD?
“Any young child of Nigerian origin is advised to have the first degree in Nigeria while other degree could be done abroad.” He advised. He cited example of his own son who intended to study Aeronautics engineering in South Africa but was actually advised to have a foundational knowledge in a Nigerian University. He is currently studying electronic engineering at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife as a result of professional advice from some of his senior student colleagues in the department.
RELEVANCE OF OAU PRODUCTS IN THE LABOUR MARKET
The professor claimed that Ife products (graduates) are leading in the telecommunication industries in Nigeria. He cited an instance of a lady from his department at OAU who championed the project of the installation of the ‘main one’ telecom line (fibre line) which was drawn from Europe and America into Nigeria. This ‘main one’ line was said to be made in such a way that many other stations could be hooked up on it. He concluded by saying, “Minimally, 60% of the IT industries in Nigeria are run by Ife products.”
GENERAL IMPORTANCE AND ECONOMIC RELEVANCE OF ELECTRONICS AS A COURSE
“Electronics control virtually everything now; communication, the food we eat, our daily existence, as you wake up each day, you interfere with one electronic device or the other; so to a big extent, electronics rules the world. Experts in the field of electronics contribute a lot to the economic (and industrial) values of the country in that they help in training people to manipulate or use different devices (both domestic and industrial) correctly and also, they design systems that can assist in a number of areas of life. Only that little or no noise is made on these exploits in software development and in equal manner; many of our own products (students) are becoming that” Moreover he re-emphasised it that electronics people are the ones who are actually behind a lot of software things which are now of real economic and industrial values even more than oil and gas.
ADVICE TO POTENTIAL ENGINEERS
“They (potential engineers) should have good graft of mathematics, physics and the willingness to apply themselves to practical things. This makes it easier for them because the most pronounced area of problem is mostly encountered on mathematics which is core in the faculty of engineering. Nobody can do engineering without Mathematics.” He finally inferred.